Comic Book Resources

For what it is worth, I thought the USM Clone Saga arc was the best thing to come out of that title in a year. At least as good as the Warriors arc (the last one that I thought was really strong).

Great idea for an article, here are my comics that I still bought after they jumper the shark

1) Dreamwave Transformers comics: I was excited after the first mini-series, but that faded soon after DW decided to create an all-new continuity. Superion was dead, they never explained who Lazarus was, and Galvatron decided to go beat up the Armada Transformers. And I still bought it

2) Superman: Our Worlds At War storyline: General Zod is Russian now? Aquaman and Guy Gardner died (they got better). And Imperiex looked like something Jack Kirby would design in an ambien-induced haze. Anyone want these issues?

3) Green Lantern: I loved Kyle Rayner as GL, then Ron Marz seemed to run out of ideas very quickly. I kept hoping someone would do a "Retrun of Barry Allen"-esque storyline, that would define Kyle as the new GL, but alas. Then Judd Winick came onboard, and the book got pretty bad. Thank god for Rebirth.

It's funny that when you mention the times to drop X-Men and Spider-Man were when I DID drop them...

Definitely have to agree on the Justice League selection. I LOVE the Giffen/DeMatteis issues of the series, and I even thought Dan Jurgens did an okay job with his time on the series, despite having to work in such things as Bloodwynd, Maxima, and the Death Of Superman. It was after he left though that DC should have rebooted right there. A bunch of no name writers and artists got handed the book (seriously, I can remember Dan Vado's name and that's it...) and all we got from it was the death of Ice and the apparent-but-not-really death of Metamorpho. Give yourself a round of applause for that one, DC...

Couple of others that came to mind-
1. Wonder Woman (2nd series)- George Perez really did a great job of breathing life into the franchise as both artist AND writer, but they should have pulled a Sandman/Starman/Preacher and ended the book right after he left (or maybe, just maybe, BEFORE the War Of The Gods train wreck...). Bill Loebs tried his best, but I dropped the book around the time they brought in artists who started drawing WW like it was another Image book. I like WW but I've never understood the constant need to make her one of the "Big Three" when she's never shown the ability to carry one title consistantly, much less a whole line of books like Batman & Superman...

2. Ultimate Universe- I enjoy Bendis & Bagley's take on Spidey very much, but for the most part I feel like the Ultimate line has outlived its usefulness, not to mention its original purpose. It was supposed to be the line of books that would provide a good, light-on-continuity version of the characters, so that people who saw the Spider-Man, X-Men, and FF movies who wanted to run out and read the comics could do so. However, the Ultimate line has written itself into the corner I always knew it would. After 5+ years of existance, the Ultimate books now have their OWN convoluted back story and continuity. And do we really need to have an Ultimate Ronin when the regular version has only made, what, 3 appearances so far? Oddly enough, I think Marvel's most accessible books to the general public may be their Marvel Adventures line...

USM has totally risen back to greatness with the Clone Saga. I liked Deadpool and Knights and the Morbius issues so it never really left greatness for me, but the last arc was especially wonderful.

But I can't believe nobody has mentioned the ultimate jump the shark menu (that's still ongoing): 52. Everyone knows it's been a huge disappointment after giving it 3 months/12 issues and yet, there will be the people who will not only buy every issue but continue on to Countdown out of...what? Loyalty? Completionism?

Other than that, I also can't believe, upon reflection, that I've bought issues of Uncanny X-Men since Joe Casey left.

I disagree about the 'everyone' comment on 52 -- everyone I personally know who reads it thinks it remains their favorite book every week, including dyed-in-the-wool Marvel fans.

I remember liking Green Lantern (the Kyle run) through Winick, but still buying through Raab's run for no real reason. Similarly, I continued buying Action Comics through Chuck Austen, despite hating the man's work for the most part.

BTW, No Man's Land remains one of my favorite storylines ever, so there's another example of folks diagreeing (the end run was the best part, in my opinion).

And, not reading many blogs (this is the only one I read), I have no idea the column you're referencing -- maybe you should have posted a link...

Over the last forty years I have always bought Avengers and JLA, no matter how bad they sucked (and boy did they suck sometimes), because even if they were the only Marvel or DC comic I was buying at the time, I could keep up with the currrent status quo in their respective universes.

I also "vote with my wallet" on certain characters. (Hawkeye, for example.) Even if the creative team sucks, I want comics about that character! Maybe a better team will come around later. But I write letters to the editor to tell them that.

Good column. I was thinking about this last night, and I have decided to drop Robin after some 160 issues. I think I'm a little too old for the adventures of a 16 year old hero. It was fine when I was 16, all those years back when I started buying the title, but Jeez, it's had some really bad runs (since around the 70's) and I just stuck with it. Even through those craptastic Willingham issues. The same is true for Nightwing, although I'm not quite ready to drop the book just yet, as he is one of my favourite characters.

I read that Grotesk story in Batman recently, even though I knew it was awful just from the preview pages online. There's just something about having a hole in a long run of a series that gives the obsessive-compulsive in me a panic attack. And that's what the big two count on, my obsessiveness will override their badness around 8 times out of 10 (although I am just dropping about every Marvel single that I buy as the current storylines end, because of the ad situation - they'll get my money in the trades).

On another note, I'd add another vote for the Clone Saga in USM being fantastic, as well. Every issue had an 'ohmygod!!', often more than once, it was a really great read. With regards to the Ultimate line, I consider myself to be one of their target readers. When the line came out, I'd never really bought any Marvel comics before, and found the continuity to be really off-putting. The Ultimate universe is my Marvel Universe. I've grown up with it, read pretty much every book, and so am completely au fait with the sometimes dense history. I'm still not very interested in the 616 universe, but Marvel certainly succeeded in getting this reader onboard for the Ultimate books, and so I think the line has been a success. Although I'm only buying them in trade from now on because of the bloody ads!

Poor General Glory. Why does everyone hate him so? Sure, the story gets too bogged down in "Hey, we're actually in a comic book!" nonsense, but it has a lot of fun aspects too. I love the Guy/General relationship. But yeah, once Giffen & DeMatteis left, the book dropped off so fast it hurts.

Another one that fits this criteria for me in Doom Patrol. I just couldn't stop reading the Rachel Pollack run following Morrison, despite the fact that it was pretty awful from beginning to end.

Oh, lordy, lordy. Hall of shame time.

JLA (Morrison boot). Waid's run had some good stories that nonetheless made a mess of things. In retrospect there's not an arc after that that I can remember without wincing, even a Busiek Crime Syndicate arc fercrissake. But I stuck with it for a long time due to the afterimage of "They've returned the Justice League to greatness!" burned into my eyes.

I suspect Powers has well and truly jumped, but I keep buying.

The post-Zero Hour boot of the Legion, which I own almost all of though there were entire years that went by stupidly.

I'm a consistent sucker for sticking around a book a while too long after a great run. Superman after the Death and Return. Flash after Waid. Avengers after Busiek.

I jumped off the X-Books after Fatal Attractions, and didn't return until Morrison, so I'm pretty pleased with myself for that. The sharks themselves had jumped sharks even by the time of Fatal Attractions, but I gather it got worse and worse from there.

I think I bought an issue of Superman/ Batman once, which by definition meant buying it after it had jumped.

It really, REALLY bugs me that you didn't provide the link for the original rant. Seriously, what reason could you have for omitting it? Now I have to search around the blogospher for it.

Fine. Be that way, everyone! I will edit the post to link to Kevin's rant. Like he needs the publicity!

Well, if it makes you feel any better, I only ask because this blog is the only comics blog I read. I never even heard of Kevin Church before.

USM's Clone Saga was okay, but...well, IMO, it didn't do much to change the big status quo. Some stuff was cool, but I dunno. And then there were some "WTF?!" retcons that made me sick to my stomach (Ockneto? Really).

So I'm like three steps away from dropping the title.

I've already dropped the rest of the Ultimate titles - except for Ultimates 2, which I'll drop once it wraps in 2009. I completely agree with the poster who suggested that the line has outlived it's usefulness and purpose.

-M

Standard Avengers and JLA but the one that still haunts me is the early 80s run of Man Thing. At a young age I recognized that the stories weren't very good but kept buying it because I thought the title "Man Thing" was funny.

Jacob - Interesting you say "Flash after Waid." For me, the second half of his run was pretty lackluster and Johns marked a return to quality. If there's any portion of Flash v. 2 I'd like to disregard, it's 115-160 or so.

I was a huge fan of The Ultimates, Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate Spider-Man because of their slow pace. They told the stories that Stan Lee vaulted over in the slam-bang '60s. (I never read Ultimate X-Men because I am sick to death of Mutants.)I also liked that there was a real focus on the stars of the book existing in their own narrative, not just as part of a larger story.

But then the cross-overs started, and Ultimate Marvel Team-Up (Worst. Idea. Ever.) and oddities like Ultimate Iron Man (Is Tony Stark in The Ultimates really that kid with the nanoblood?) and that Ultimate Vision weirdness. Already the Ultimate Universe continuity is so dense and confusing as to be off-putting. And things like sticking Spider-Man in the back of a couple of panels of America being conquered only makes it worse. What is the rush to use every possible character as quickly as possible?

I've already dropped US-M and all but dropped UFF. The next run of Ultimates better grab me quick.

And just how many Marvel Universes are there anyway? They're giving them numbers, fer cryin' out loud!

These days, I tend to follow writers around. I rarely pick up a book just because of the art, unless is it an artist/character combo that I really like.

I thought Ultimate Clonse Saga was alright, but I liked the Deadpool arc better because sure, Spidey spends the whole time freaking out about how much trouble he'll be in, but he's still kicking mutant-hating butt while doing it.

So, comics I stuck with too long. My numbers won't stack up to some of the others, because I've only been collecting on a monthly basis since about 2000, but here's what I've got:

Uncanny X-Men: I started with Joe Casey, and gave up with Claremont and the "X-Men as a government agency". Really, I needed to bail about #415, the "Dominant Species" story, because not long after Austen added Polaris and an un-comatose Havok to the team, ramped up their angst, and I was getting real bored.

JLA: I went back through my collection about a year ago (starts at "Tower of Babel") and realized that after Joe kelly's story about J'onn unlocking his true potential by overcoming his fire weakness, I didn't enjoy an issue until I dropped the book during Busiek's Crims Syndicate arc (which I dropped because it made no sense to me).

Robin: Started around #85, probably should have said goodbye after War Games and Identity Crisis, combined with move to Bludhaven, wiped out Tim Drake's supporting cast, but I hung on until the first One Year Later arc. I'm also a Batgirl fan, so "Robin: Boy Wanted" finished any desire I had to read Robin.

New Avengers: I thought the first six issues weren't bad, the idea of the team reforming to capture escaped super-criminals seemed interesting. The addition of The Sentry (can't stand him) should have tipped me off, but it took The Collective to make me say goodbye.

Marvel Knights/Sensational Spider-Man: Probably never should have bought this at all, certainly should have stopped after Millar, finally gave up after it switched to Sensational and i realized I didn't need to read that many Spider-Man books (I think I was at five at that point).

Actually, the problem with the JLA/JLE was that they kicked off Giffen and DeMatteis and replaced them with Gerard Jones and Dan Jurgens, who wanted to try to do humor to placate one crowd but also be "serious" to placate another with disastrous reults (Fire/Ice lesbian thing, over-exaggerations of characters and pseudo drama like Ice fawning over Supes, etc.).

Giffen at least realized that if you were going to be serious (Extremists, Despero, Starro...the man wrote a great Starro story) be serious. If you were going to be goofy, be goofy. But don't try to be both at the same time.

The only decent story to come out of the post-Giffen/Pre-Morrison run was Destiny's Hand, which was a solid four issues without too much to complain about, but I wouldn't call it spectacular.

The rest was crap.

DW Transformer series one comics are some of the best Non-Furman written ones I've seen despite some stilted dialogue. We bitch too much about "nothing changing" in comics, so that Superion and Wheeljack actually killed themselves heroically/permanently was nice...and then they retconned the hell out of it in part two because we couldn't have Wheeljack dead or Transformers killing people (how did that just go away with no mention at all...it was like it never happened).

Still I liked DWs run as a whole...much better in my book than anything now.

I think a whole series of posts can be made from just when each of us have given up in the x-books, returned, and then probably left and came back to leave again over and over. I know I first lost hope in wolverine during the whole returning his adamantium thin around issue 75.

As far as trades go, I think it makes it easier for us to kinda stay half commited with those around. We all know some books just go through a tough storyline and trades make it so much easier to just grab all the missed stuff and pick right back up on things that i think it makes us less likely to give up on something. PLus the way the industry is so nostalgic that I think they convince us to buy books on the fact alone that we used to like them.

Practically every comic being published jumped the shark for me in the 90's. Seriously, comics got so freaking bad that they didn't entertain me any more. So despite having complete runs of most of the major Marvel titles...I stopped collecting.

Sad to say, from what I've seen, the SOME comics have improved a LITTLE, but overall...they've never really gotten THAT much better since then.

Well, I've been guilty of a lot of this in the past. Uncanny X-Men is the big one for me, too. Even as recently the Chuck Austen run, I stuck around because he was using a lot of my favourite X-character (Archangel). I wish I had more sense then, as I could have put that money toward something worthwhile.

I've thankfully shaken off that slavish devotion to specific titles/characters and instead now tend to follow creators I know I enjoy, as well as "trying out" the work of creators who come highly recommended. If I'm not enjoying it, I don't read it - period. (Which, funny, means that I'm barely reading any superhero material at all these days.)

More horses for courses... I started reading Doom Patrol with #62, and picked up Morrison's run in back issues while carrying on with Rachel Pollack's. I liked them both for different reasons. Sure, I know most people seem to have hated Rachel's run, but there've been precious few other comics I've seen which have tackled issues like that.

Also, while TV shows rarely jump back across the shark, that can happen with comics. Who in 2000 would have predicted that X-Men would suddenly become cool again (at least for a while), and how many people dropped Swamp Thing in 1982 thinking "This is never gonna be any good?"

~ Gil

Marvel Knights/Sensational Spider-Man: Probably never should have bought this at all, certainly should have stopped after Millar, finally gave up after it switched to Sensational and i realized I didn’t need to read that many Spider-Man books (I think I was at five at that point).

That's a shame, IMO, since I think that Sensational is arguably the best Spider-book out there right now. It lagged a bit with Hudlin, but after "The Other" it's been pretty solid.

-M

I found this response to the Church post more persuasive than Church's post itself.

I was a huge fan of The Ultimates, Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate Spider-Man because of their slow pace...

But then the cross-overs started, and Ultimate Marvel Team-Up (Worst. Idea. Ever.)

You've got your history backwards. Ultimate Marvel Team-Up was one of the three ongoing series that launched the Ultimate line, starting in April 2001 and ending in July 2002.

Ultimate FF, on the other hand, didn't start until February 2004.

"We’ve all done it, people!"

Not all of us. I will never understand the compulsion to buy something you dislike. What, are you people millionaires?

I agree. I haven't really done it. I'm pretty glad that I have dropped a lot of books when I did rather than keep reading crap. I will admit that I kept buying Infinite Crisis after it became clear that it was crap and none of the four minis that came before it had anything to contribute to the series.

Most recently I picked up the first issue of Trial of Shazam and don't regret not sticking with that crap for one minute. I bought two issues of the newest Flash and I don't regret not buying any more of it.

The only series I kept with was Swamp Thing through the horrible Dough Wheeler stories and then the boring Nancy Collins issues.

So you have done it, Bryan! Don't be ashamed!

I know none of us are perfect like you are, Dan. I don't think it's a compulsion to buy stuff we dislike, I think it's a hope they'll get better. I know that while I was buying those Spider-Man comics and the X-Men comics, I didn't actively hate them as much as feel a vague disappointment in them and wish they would get better. I certainly didn't bitch about them like people who buy Civil War and then whine about it do.

Civil War after Spider-Man revealed his secret identity.

JLA Obsidian age was the absolutle jump the shark for the last JLA series. which was quite a shame because the series began with such great stories. The whole thing bogged down in to a giant mess. But thats the same with most JLA books. JLA detroit anyone?
The JSA series was a little harder to pin down when it jumped the shark. It seemed to be a never ending revolving world getting messed up in a big way every 8 months or so before being put back together again followed by a couple slow months before another big world blow up usually somehow connected to obsidian or Mordru...sometimes both. Very tedious.

I've been a terrible victim of changing tastes, since I started reading comics as a kid because I saw the X-Men cartoon. So the first comic book I ever really picked up as a Scott Lobdell X-Men issue! I suppose there the miracle is that I ever read anything else. As of this writing I still have the issues around out of nostalgia but that probably won't last past the end of the month. (I'm moving soon and always purge all the "junk" I own before swapping houses, and there's a lot of junk in my comic book collection I know I'll never miss.)

I got my comics via pull boxes, so there was usually a 3-6 month "grace" period before dropping any given book. Basically I dropped books when I started finding them so unenjoyable the memory of how much I didn't enjoy them lingered for a full week, until I went back to the store on new comic book day. What really sucked was when I went to a store a few years back that mandated you buy everything in your pull box, and strictly ordered according to Previews. So even if you canceled something on your pull box, you'd end up buying it for another couple months while you waited for the cancellation to take hold! Bleah.

So even if you canceled something on your pull box, you’d end up buying it for another couple months while you waited for the cancellation to take hold!

Reason #187 why the Direct Market sucks and needs to be completely levelled and revamped. It's screaming "Bad business practices" left and right.

It's more a problem of me living in a rural area, where there basically isn't a LCS in the traditional sense. The last true LCS we had got killed by the market bust in the 90's. Instead, there are a few gaming stores that do direct market comics as a sideline.

One store gave good discounts, but the proprietor was really afraid of losing money on special orders, hence the insane pull box policy. For awhile his store was the only one you could go to for about an hour in any direction.

Some disgruntled buyers there simply opened a competing gaming shop that ran comics as a sideline, with a much friendlier order policy but a smaller discount. This is store I'm with now, and I find myself reading more comics all the time because of it.

This being said, I'd agree that floppy comics aren't a problem. The direct market's structure, and particularly Diamond Distribution, is a problem. Unfortunately, the industry isn't healthy enough right now to support another major distributor, although it strikes me as a bit of a self-perpetuating cycle.

I liked, then disliked, then liked again, The USM clone saga. I thought the epilogue was really good, playing up Peters adoration for Nick Fury, and the mental scars the Mary Jane suffered. Oh, and Aunt May knows Peter is Spidey. Really, the status quo has changed. Oh, I thought the death of Gwen Stacy was sad, tragic, and excellent.

Comics I dropped: JLA during Joe Kelly's run. Everything after Morrison's run was pretty shaky, and I also find that without absolutely top notch writing, I can't really tolerate DC continuity for very long. Basically, if Morrison isn't writing it, I rarely read anything from DC.

Uncanny during Claremont's most recent run. Terrible terrible writing. Just atrocious. No one really brings it up, but Claremont's final run was worse than anything Joe Casey and Chuck Austen inflicted. He was great in the 80's, but that was then, this is now. If I see Claremont's name on a comic now, I most certainly stay away. Have you read any of New Excalibur? Yeesh.

Same goes with X-Treme X-Men, the most boring X-Men comic ever. Larocca's flat, supermodel art didn't help either.

Captain America after 9/11. Boring boring boring. I don't care how good the art is, Cap fighting terrorists isn't interesting and page after page of portentious captions sunk it even further. I've heard good things about Brubaker's current run, but the Civil War issue I bought read like a subpar version of Gruenwald circa 1990. Armin Zola? Still? Bah.

I don't think I've ever bought a straight superhero book for more than twelve issues straight in pamphlet form. I drop books even if they DON'T jump the shark.

I drop a title as soon as it starts to feel like a commitment. Mini-series and bi-monthlies are alright, but as soon as I start having to buy some stupid comic every month... That's a STONE DRAG, baby. I'm like the wind, and can't be tied down.

While JLA had trouble finding its footing after Morrison left despite some good work from Waid, I agree-- Obsidian Age was hell in a handbasket from which it never recovered.

(Incidentally, a rule I'd like to see imposed: characters who are supposed to be recognizably human in their psychological and neurological makeup cannot undergo thousands of years worth of subjective-time experience and remain substantially the same, or even sane by our standards, afterwards. Wonder Woman and Superman getting trapped in an alternate battle dimension for a thousand years was bad enough. (They should come back and have more trouble remembering any character we know that we have remembering anyone from kindergarten, after all.) But Plastic Man getting trapped on the floor of the Atlantic for 10,000 years, and just being angry Plas about it afterward, was awful.)

What's really bizarre is: they clearly thought they had a winner of a storyline there. They hyped the hell out of it, and didn't it go biweekly at that point?

"I know none of us are perfect like you are, Dan. I don’t think it’s a compulsion to buy stuff we dislike, I think it’s a hope they’ll get better."

Don't get defensive, Greg. This prefectly illustrates what I don't understand about it. This idea that being a discerning comics buyer is some kind of special trait is ridiculous and nonsensical. That's NORMAL. Most people in the world don't buy things that they know they won't like. And they rarely continue to patronize a business that has disappointed them.

And the "hope they'll get better" argument makes absolutely zero sense. Why don't you stop buying the book while it's bad and hope it gets better? At least that way, you'll be sending a message in the only way the publishers really notice. If a comic's not selling well, you can bet that book's editor is gonna be trying to figure out how to fix it. And that includes shuffling the staff.

You guys remember that the big two are businesses, right? They want to sell the most books. If you keep buying shitty books, they're going to keep making them, because they're SELLING.

It boggles my mind that this concept doesn't set in for people. It's so basic. Comics are the only artistic medium I know of where this behavior even occurs. Everywhere else, people make it very clear what they like and don't like, by watching/listening/eating what they like and avoiding what they don't.

Actually, eating is a good analogy. If you start a meal, and it tastes like crap, are you gonna keep eating it, in the hopes that it'll get better? Or would you stop because it tastes like crap?

I dunno, Dan.

I agree that people shouldn't buy stuff that they hate.

Other than that, Point by point:

People (including me) will buy stuff for reasons other than pure craft or concept. I'll buy any comic with pirates in it, no questions asked. Some of this is simply that I'm a fan of pirate stories, and am more likely to enjoy 'em then stories in other genres. I'm not looking for quality, per se, just the kind of stuff I like.

Some of this is satisfying an anal retentive collectors impulse.

But satisfying an anal retentive collectors impulse IS something I enjoy.

And some of it's a kind of historical/literary interest in seeing how different creators utilize similar elements over time. Even if the book isn't GOOD, it can provide an interesting basis for comparison with what other people have done over time.

And the "I'm still buying in hopes it gets better and in the mean time I'm gonna bitch about it" phenomena is certainly not limited to comics.

I've heard the same sentiments expressed by fans ("fans") of Miles Davis, the Rolling Stones, Joseph Heller. I know a dude who buys all the albums by the Ferguson brothers but says he can't bear to listen to them anymore. Same deal.

Comics are the only artistic medium I know of where this behavior even occurs.

Um. No. Similar behavior occurs with pretty much all media, I think.

I don't know how many times I've heard people talk about how they've kept watching TV shows that they didn't like anymore, because they used to be so good. And, let's see, in the world of books of the non-comic variety, Robert Jordan's interminable Wheel of Time series is a good example. Everyone complains about how, while the first few books were great, in the later books nothing happens, and they're so terribly awful and disappointing...and yet those same people who are complaining about the books keep on buying them. (Or did, anyway; maybe he's finally finished the series by now...or gone on another indefinite hiatus. Personally, I wasn't even all that enamored of the first few books in the series, so I didn't keep up with it myself.)

It's a very common phenomenon, and it's by no means limited to comic books. Not even close.

I'm not being defensive, Dan. I'm just kidding! I think Mark and Alan perfectly expressed what I was thinking. I do the same kind of thing with music, especially. If I don't like an album by a band that I've liked before, I'll usually buy the follow-up to see if they've regained their form. If that stinks, THEN I bail on them. But I do give them a chance to make it right!

"Actually, eating is a good analogy. If you start a meal, and it tastes like crap, are you gonna keep eating it, in the hopes that it’ll get better? Or would you stop because it tastes like crap?"

With food, you don't have to worry that if you stop eating the meal that tastes bad, no one will ever make you a meal again.

I know, I know. You say The Big 2 would never cancel a comic about one of their iconic, recognizable characters just because it sucked so bad people stopped buying it. To you I say Flash, Thor, Ghost Rider, Punisher...

I love General Glory--great character spoof, and great character study was done in a fun, if goofy way.

I have never bought an X-man comic...

Everywhere else, people make it very clear what they like and don’t like, by watching/listening/eating what they like and avoiding what they don’t.

As has been pointed out, this statement would be terrifically difficult to prove. Our responses to entertainment media just aren't that simple.

People attach themselves emotionally to characters, to writers, to concepts...even to the coolness points they figure they're earning...then stick with them regardless of surrounding quality.

The 'Wheel of Time' book series is an excellent example; so is the fact that 'Lost' is still on TV. (Just on a personal level, so is the fact that I stuck with the awful early-nineties TV revival of 'Zorro', even still have it on tape somewhere, just because I loved the main characters.)

Two words: TEAM TITANS

Totally agree with General Glory, even though I didn't stick around for the rest of the series - his first appearance was the last issue I got.

I dropped Uncanny X-Men around 280-ish, it had been about 3 years since I had actually enjoyed an issue.

My last Amazing Spider-Man was the one where he proposed to Mary Jane.

Last Doom Patrol was the first post-Morrison issue. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't the same series.

Got Thor until Simonson quit writing it, should have dropped it when he had quit drawing it two years earlier. I like Sal Buscema (it was Sal wasn't it?), just not on that.

Daredevil - Nocenti's last issue was mine as well, I think it jumped after Romita Jr left.

In retrospect, all these books jumped the shark for me in the 3 - 4 year window when I "graduated" to primarily reading non-superhero comix.

General Glory was amusing enough as a one-off parody. Making him a member of the team was a poor decision.

The JLI books certainly declined in quality before Giffen and DeMatteis left, but I don't think they quite jumped until the Death of Superman tie-ins.

I read New Titans well past "Titans Hunt," and I'm pretty sure the book jumped at "Who is Wonder Girl?" and that hideous Troia costume.

I'd disagree with General glory and No Man's Land. The General Glory story was okay, but just a bit over long. I thought Breakdowns was actually a small step down and it was obviously time for Giffen to move on by then, but he managed to pull it together for an excellent final issue with Kevin Maguire - and then Gerard Jones went and wrote an insult of an issue that undid Giffen's ending and had the gall to label it as part of the Breakdowns story.

No-Mans-Land is probably the single best big bat-crossover that's been done.

My "carry on buying" crimes are:

Swamp Thing - I bought this all the way through Doug Wheeler's abysmal run and then shortly after Nancy A Collins actually made it half decent I wound up dropping it for money reasons.

Superman - I carried on buying this for about 5 years after Byrne left and there really weren't that many decent stories - actually within the ongoing titles there have barely been any decent stories since then (Reign of the Superman excepted).

JLA - I should have stopped the moment Casey came on board, but then a few months in he came out with that excellent Batman + Plastic Man story which game him a stay of execution. In the end I stayed all of the way to the end of The Obsidan Age - what a waste of money!

JSA - I stayed with this for a couple of years after James Robinson left - that was a couple of years too long.

The Flash - I'm still buying it! I would probably drop it now, but there's a new team coming on board.

I stayed with Infinite Crisis thru the end because I didn't want to be left out. Glad I didn't buy all the minis cause I was quite disappointed in it.

I also stuck with JLA thru Obsidian Age and up until it was relaunched. I like the relaunch but I could have saved some money on the last volume, I guess I kept with it because I like seeing all the characters together.

I stick with TV shows that used to be great too, and I try to eat a shrimp every time its served because I keep getting told how great they are but I never like them. But its like I have a compulsion to test it. At least I don't buy them.

At least I was smart enough to dump the DCU in protest after they killed off Superboy... but then I do like Green Lantern and got drawn back in toSuperman with Richard Donner on, but I'm not buying the fill-in and I'll probably leave Wonder Woman after Heinburg. I really only bought it because I like him and the idea of him writing Diana Prince but she just doesn't have that interesting a supporting group.

Oops - that "anonymous" was me. I'm on a new machine so the Name field got forgotten

[quote]Practically every comic being published jumped the shark for me in the 90’s. Seriously, comics got so freaking bad that they didn’t entertain me any more. So despite having complete runs of most of the major Marvel titles…I stopped collecting.[/quote]

Yeah, I think I completely dropped the medium in '93. It just didn't feel worth the trouble. I had enough chrome-covered issues, I guess.

I quit reading Amazing Spider-Man when Peter Parker's dead parents showed up at his door at the end of an issue (circa #360, I think). Truth be told, I thought the book was hurting by that point (though the two-part anniversary story in #349-350 was unexpectedly terrific). But when I saw Peter's parents show up, I bailed. And this was before the Clone Saga, which I thankfully missed.

Funny this thread should pop up, I was just rereading old Teen Titans issue and that series just became unreadable in the late 90s. I stuck around a little too long, maybe a year after Wonder Girl became Troia and it became The Titans. I kept going through Deathstroke teaming up with them, Wildebeast and Pantha joining, and finally left after the Team Titans storyline. I finally had a chance to look at what I missed after that and it got atrocious. I mean I have no idea how that book kept selling: Cyborg gets lobotomized, Changeling changes and can only shift into Lovecraftian monsters, Starfire goes nut, Raven goes evil and Nightwing flakes. Everything that made Teen Titans a great book in the 80s was gutted out. And the art was just horrible, even by 90s Liefeld-knock off standards. Ugh

I hung on with JLA through the end of Kelly's run. At least a year too long, but I wisely got out before the Claremont/Byrne vampire story. I came back for Busiek's Crime Syndicate, but that was it.

I finally gave up on JSA a couple of issues into OYL. I kept expecting Johns to resolve certain plot threads, especially since those plot threads occasionally still made their way into solicits. For instance, the solicitation for JSA #76 said "the JSA must regroup and reassess their purpose — but Hawkman harbors a secret that will change the JSA's role in the DCU forever! Plus, Mr. Terrific begins his hunt for Roulette!" When the issue finally hit stands, it featured the JSA fighting an OMAC.

I should've quit Flash after "Ignition," returning only for the Rogue profile issues. "Rogue War" did not live up to its promise.

In retrospect, the bloom came off of Loeb and Kelly's Superman runs (especially Loeb's, and ESPECIALLY OWAW) much earlier than I realized at the time. I quit Loeb's after the terrible #175 Doomsday issue.

I gave up Ultimate Spider-Man after the Hobgoblin arc, I think. Sometime around #79. About a year late, I think.

"With food, you don’t have to worry that if you stop eating the meal that tastes bad, no one will ever make you a meal again.

I know, I know. You say The Big 2 would never cancel a comic about one of their iconic, recognizable characters just because it sucked so bad people stopped buying it. To you I say Flash, Thor, Ghost Rider, Punisher…"

No, I wouldn't say that. I'd say that you're crazy if you think cancelling one of those character's books means the end of that character. Namor hasn't had a long-running, well-selling book in a long time. And he's still a Marvel mainstay and has another new book starting up soon.

Flash, Thor, Ghost Rider, and the Punisher all illustrate that fcat perfectly.

So, the argument is that it's NOT weird and totally normal to keep supporting media you don't like?

That doesn't make it any less stupid.

Apodaca - You're right... there's no reason to buy a comic that sucks. However, it's usually not as simple as a "sucks/doesn't suck" black-and-white dichotomy. There are degrees of goodness and degrees of badness, and always shades of gray.

For example, I might feel like a title is mediocre, but still good enough to merity a three-dollar purchase. I'm not necessarily in love with it, but I don't hate it either. I like it just enough to spend three dollars on it, but I'm not so in love with it that I can't criticize or find some errors with it.

It's sort of an "on the fence" situation.

When a title clearly jumps the shark, it goes from being truly outstanding and obviously worth a purchase, to simply worth a purchase but not fantastic. Then finally, it devolves into utter garbage. By the time you've reached this last stage, it would be insanity to continue reading, but those middle stages are when you might soldier on, despite the drop in quality. Not everything you buy will be 100%... in fact, not everything you LIKE will be 100%. Sometimes it's just 75% or so, and you continue to buy it, despite the shark jump.

Personally, I think the entire Ultimate line has jumped the shark and outlived it's original intent. The purpose of the Ultimate line to begin with has been used up... it was a fun ride for awhile, but now it's nothing special. I think the Ultimate Universe truly jumped the shark when Millar left. He was pretty much the architect of the whole thing. What made the line so special was Millar's vision of superhero comics that had relevance to today's world, and incorporated socio-political themes cultivated from today's headlines.

Newer writers don't seem to understand this, and the titles wind up being just more generic superhero comics as a result. Witness THE ULTIMATES, for example. Jeph Loeb promises to turn this book into another "summer blockbuster" superhero beat-em-up. That's boring and goes a long way to kill the destinction that separated THE ULTIMATES from THE AVENGERS to begin with.

After Millar left ULTIMATE X-MEN, it just became more teenage relationship histrionics, with an occasional cool story or bit of thematic power... however, Millar's original run would never be duplicated.

I read Sandman back in the '80s, but it jumped the shark around issue 8....